Today we’d like to introduce you to Albert Baez.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born and raised in Washington Heights NY after my parents migrated from the Dominican Republic. English was our second language and growing up in NYC during the ’90s came with many challenges for me and my family.
As a kid, my passion was playing baseball and I had the opportunity to play through college (Purchase State) and won Pitcher of the Year for the Skyline Conference in 2011. After a career-ending injury while playing for the Dodge City A’s of the Jayhawk League, I went through a bout of depression and unknown. My best friend Patrick Ramos was a big inspiration for me during those tough times and really helped me get back on my feet. He referred me to a company called Yodle for the position of Technology Sales Representative, and this opportunity changed my life.
With plenty of carryover skills and experiences from baseball to business, I was able to accelerate my technology career and began to be promoted within my first four months of being hired. I have served as a Sales Manager, Sales Training Manager, Data Surpiversor, and Operations Manager for technology Startups Yodle, Opcity, and Main Street Hub all three of them were sold and had successful exits.
It was my time and experience at these Startups that gave me the idea of Blended Sense, a media technology company that matches creative freelancers with local gigs. We help small business owners get the content they need to run and grow their businesses while helping creative professionals make supplemental income. We have 14 full-time employees and have served hundreds of businesses while employing dozens of creatives. Our vision is to be the trusted platform for creative services in every community on earth.
Serving underserved communities in business is my focus in everything I do and building Blended Sense has provided a platform and vehicle to do this every day. I hope to make our platform multi-lingual so we can help creatives and business owners of all backgrounds.
I am married to my beautiful life partner Abigail Rose Baez and we have a one-year-old named Oliver Francis Baez. We currently live in Southwest Austin, TX.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road for me, below are some of the major challenges I have faced.
– Immigrant Parents and Language Barrier
– Grew up in poverty and a dangerous neighborhood in the ’90s.
– Experienced Discrimination and Racism at Fairfield University
– Mom became ill during my time in college
– Career-Ending Injury which leads to a bout of depression
– Struggled before eventually figuring out the craft of sales
– Failed the first attempt of building a technology company Review My Song
All of these challenges were fuel to my fire and helped me persevere to get to where I am today.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Blended Sense?
Blended Sense is a media technology company out of Austin TX
In a time where digital communication is an essential part of daily business, we have 2 of the largest drivers of the US economy at risk. Small business owners and the Creative Freelancer.
Small Business owners do not have the time, resources, or the know-how to create and produce the digital assets they need to run their business, communicate with their target audience and thrive in today’s marketplace.
Creative Freelancers are isolated and they struggle with customer service, accounting, and project management. This leaves 1 of 2 creatives struggling with cash flow.
What we have built is a digital platform called Creative Intelligence. Our technology matches the right creative teams to the right projects and automates all of the pre-and post-production logistics to de-risk the relationship between creative pros and small businesses.
Our matches are hyper-local and create a recurring relationship between the two. We are one of the only companies that operate on a subscription basis for creative solutions to SMBS.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I view risk as a necessary step towards achieving our dreams, we should never expect something for nothing.
As the oldest of three and the first to go to college in my family, taking risks has been a consistent and necessary step to my success.
We have risked everything we have for the success of Blended Sense and is to date the most major risk I have taken.
Contact Info:
- Email: albert@blendedsense.com
- Website: www.blendedsense.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blendedsense/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqrj6OYDNzdjTZ71XBrNh0Q
